Reviewer

Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewer

A reviewer play a major role in progress of scientific knowledge. As an expert of the scientific field, the peer reviewer has a significant responsibility in advancement of right knowledge and as maintainer of quality of research in their own field of research and expertise. Peer review in its all form is important for the scientific community and it is a duty of the reviewer to adhere themselves to the highest standard of publication ethics. Reviewers are in a unique position to encourage the conduct of good research through their comments, feedback, recommendations, policies and processes. Peer review process depends largely on the trust of editors on reviewers and requires everyone involved in the process to behave responsibly and ethically. The aim of this document is to set a
standard guidelines to which a reviewer should adhere to during the process of reviewing.

The reviewer is expected to follow the ethical guidelines which will be helpful in fostering a responsible conduct of research. The COPE has defined detailed duties and ethics for reviewers (reviewer may refer to COPE documents for details), few selected important basic points are included here for quick guide.

Basic fundamental ethics for reviewers

* Reviewer should always agree to review only those articles that falls under his/her area of expertise. A title and abstract is provided by editors in invitation email, the reviewer may judge the contents from abstract and agree/disagree to review based on that.

* The ISP journals use single blind review process, so a reviewer should always respect the confidentiality of the peer review. Reviewer should not disclose (in any circumstances) the content of the manuscript and also the review process.

* A reviewer should not use the information from the review process or the manuscript for his/her personal use or for any organizations advantage or disadvantage and should not discredit others under any circumstances.

* The reviewer may seek advice of the editors/journal whenever it is necessary. If there is any conflict of interest on the contents of manuscript, then reviewer should immediately report to editors. Reviewer should always declare all conflict of interest that arise during the process.

* Reviewers must conduct a fair review of manuscript only on the basis of contents presented in the article manuscript. A reviewer should never work under the influence of the color, gender, nationality or religious or political beliefs of author/s of article.

* Reviewer should submit decent constructive comments/feedback for article, and never be hostile and should refrain themselves from making derogatory remarks for any article.

* A reviewer should provide journal editors with all the necessary and correct information about himself and impersonating someone is considered serious misconduct.

Expectation during review process

* The reviewers are expected to submit their comments within the time/date provided by journal editors. It is the responsibility of the reviewer to reply in a timely manner, reviewers may decline to review any article especially in case if they cannot review the manuscript in the stipulated time.

* All the reviewers are expected to keep updated their area of expertise in their profile (ISP journals site). A reviewer should always notify the journal in case he don’t have the subject expertise required for reviewing any specific manuscript (sent to them reviewing).

* On agreeing to review a manuscript, they you do that in a timely manner. The journal sends reminder to reviewer on the date provided by editors, the reviewers should inform the journal as soon as possible for any delay

* As ISP journals use single blind review process (reviewer may see the author details), so in the process of reviewing of manuscript, any reviewer must not contact the author/s under any circumstances until the article is published by the journal.

* A reviewer should review a manuscript afresh. Reviewer should inform editors if any manuscript have been submitted again or if it has been already reviewed by some other journal.

* A reviewer should decline to review a manuscript if he is unable to provide an unbiased review and should not accept the manuscript just for the sake of getting a sight of it.

* A reviewer should notify the journal editors as soon as he discovers a conflict of interest or anything that might prevent them from giving an unbiased result.

* Do not associate others with the reviewing of the manuscript without informing editors of journal. Reviewer may suggest the name of other reviewer for reviewing of manuscript, in which case, the editor of respective journal editor will send an invitation to suggested reviewer for reviewing of article. Reviewer should respect efforts of other researchers and try to give credits for their efforts.

* It should be noted that journal editor/s is/are looking at reviewers for their knowledge, fair judgment, an honest review, a fair assessment of strength and weakness in the manuscript (

General Yardsticks on Suitability of Manuscripts

Reviewer should comment and submit recommendation based on the contents presented in the manuscript. Few points to consider while recommending any article:

* The reviewer should properly judge the originality or novelty of the contents and results presented in the manuscript.

* The reviewer should critically analyze the manuscript whether it has a potential to support scientific research that has been already published, its subject relevance and reliability, and most significantly its importance in terms of application for the scientific community.

* The reviewer should critically analyze the appropriateness of the experimental design, techniques and experiments adopted in the study, results obtained from respective experiments, the statistical and analytical methods reported for reported results.

* The reviewers should check the soundness of conclusion drawn in the manuscript, and thoroughly analyze the interpretation of results reported.

* The language of article should also be checked whether scientific results reported are clear, easy to understand the contents, lucid represents of contents in whole article, and writing style and clarity of contents of the manuscript.

The reviewers who has received the invitation to review any manuscript from any of ISP journal editors, may use the below link to guidelines for using online site panel for reviewing and submitting their recommendation.